Stone Guards (again)

I know there are already 3-4 threads for SG
but we re hitting a wall on the 1rst boss and its frustrating.
Our setup is
Pala-Warr tanks
DK-rog mDPS
Mage-BM hunter-Ele rDPS
Pala-Druid-Priest healers.
First week we got amethyst-jade and Jasper. It was fun wiping after 1 min.
Ok first week, tanks need to get used to the taunting tactic.
Yesterday we got Cobalt-Jade-Jasper. In my mind is the easier combo....but
we made some progress wiping at 40-45%.

Strat:
We tried to break chains during Jasper petr
I (dk) was using antimagic to break 3-4 cobalt mines.
and hunter with deterence was breaking some also.
Still our damage taken was sky high, and i was seeing our healers at less 30% mana even after 30-40 secs fight.
The problem mainly was, that we got many chains on ppl stuck behind mines, and one shoting us.
Some troubles at taunting the correct lion (even though i marked and vent the correct one) but at 90% this wasnt the problem.

As i read the forums for help i figured out some things.
First, if 2 ranged/healers get the chain just stick together and dont break em.
If i understood correctly there can be only 3 chains every time. So if we break ranged chains we get more chances linking melee and range.
Another thought i got, is for me to swich to blood in dps gear, so i dont get chained,

Our guild is a mediocre one, with ppl love to raid, but our lives comes first.
We re satisfied with clearing the content and trying some hc's.
plz be contructive

If you do make sure it's only during Cobalt Petrification, but it shouldn't be needed that much

Stop breaking Jasper Chains

If you do want to break them (usually Healer & Melee linked) only do when you are in Jasper Petrification

Tanks taunt properly if you're getting extra overloads.

Ideally you shouldn't be taking any un-mitigated, if you are make sure to use a cooldown (Devotion Aura for example).

As you said with the Chains, if you have two ranged or healers linked don't break them - they don't have to move around nearly as much and it will be easier in both mana and time to just leave them. Tanks shouldn't get chained at all, well, I haven't ever seen it. So no, if you're DPSing do it properly (Spec and gear), likewise for Tanking. Just have people open their eyes and communicate when moving so they don't get stuck. "Having lives" is not an excuse for simply being stupid.

For the taunt swapping just have the last one to overload with the one currently casting Petrification, it's that simple so don't over complicate it - you don't even have to think about it. If you are tanking the one alone, and yours begins casting overload just taunt whichever of the other two is lowest on energy. Shamelessly stolen these pictures from someone else on this forum: http://imgur.com/a/ecEG7#0

The game seems to choose who the chains will link together at the start of a fight. Even if you break them, within the same attempt, the same two people always be linked together. So you'll know whether you get a melee and ranged linked very early into the fight.

Chains don't need to be broken. If you need to hit tiles, then whoever is either not chained, or isn't chained to a healer should run and activate them. Two people chained together activating tiles can just run in a straight line side by side and you're golden. Never force a healer to run unless they give the OK. The tanks take a massive amount of damage. Make sure you guys are rolling cooldowns constantly. You have two pallies, both of whom have that ability that reduces periodic magic damage taken (can't remember the name). Roll that on cooldown. Without Amethyst up, your Priest should probably stay in the direct healing chakra.

Have your rogue also break mines with Cloak and Sprint. Don't have your hunter do it. Deterrance will only mitigate the damage to 50% if it's glyphed (I think it's a glyph). That's a lot of damage. The Pally can also bubble through them, and a Mage can break two close ones with invis, and in case of emergencies, hit another one and ice block immediately as he's hitting it.

Don't try to break chains or pop mines (unless it's an emergency) unless the petrification for that thing is up. You'll otherwise just lose DPS and take unnecessary damage.

Other than that, it's a challenging fight. You won't beat it unless your raid is focused.

Don't break the chains if you don't have to. Just make sure that people who are chained together know to move in the same direction. You might even try setting a rule - 'always move left if you're chained and something shows up on the floor underneath you'.

The taunts will take a couple of tries for the tanks to get used to. This may be a case that you need to step back and stop calling the taunts. Let the tanks figure it out themselves.

If you have too many cobalt mines on the floor, your holy paladin can clean some of them out by bubbling and running over them.

* First of all make sure your tanks are using their anti-magic dmg mitigation thingy, U'd be surprised what effect a 20+20k=40k HPS (or equivalent in absorbs) coming from tanks does
* Don't be anal about having a MT and OT, and MT always having 2 dogs on him...Have your tanks call over voice coms the boss with lowest health. It helps to put descriptive a icon on them, for instance blue square on cobalt dog. When the cobalt did his explode, tanks announce something like 'blue is lowest', if the dog exploding next is with the OT, then the OT taunts blue over. Dps must shift, of course, but they'd have to avoid stuff anyways so is not that big loss.
* Stay out of stuff on ground, break chains only when red (i.e. red X icon - Jasper) is exploding.
* A kill is a kill, even if your raid can't execute a perfect/clean tactic

Clearing room from mines might make it easier too so people have more space to move. As said before your holy paladin can bubble and clear them as well, we even have our resto druid helping with some. With Cobalt Petrification use Hand of Freedom on non-chained dps/healers so they can pop mines without getting stuck so healers won't need to waste mana on dispels. Hope it helps.

If you're on normal, you can just group up and mostly ignore the Jasper Chains mechanic. Don't bother trying to break it, not worth the time it takes. Cobalt mines may need to be exploded, but you have the right idea there: use a cooldown, blow some up. Or just blow them all up during cobalt petrification.

The fight seems complicated, but isn't if you just break it down.
-Ranged DPS/healers group up, move together out of cobalt mines/amethyst puddles; don't break chains
-Tanks do swaps when needed, don't try to always have 2 on the same tank, that complicates matters. You can do it so you only do 1 taunt at every petrification switch, always (with one exception at the pull, if the 1 dog solo petrifies; other than that, only 1 taunt is ever needed when a new petrification is cast, if you're doing more you're over-complicating it)

That's it for normal. Stay out of stuff, group up, nuke. The worst part in normal is the tanks sorting themselves out, but once they do it'll become second nature.

We also had no amethyst this week and just decided to let everyone but tanks stack on melee, completely ignoring jasper chains and just letting cobalt mines go off on everyone. 1/3rd of the time roughly jade shards will deal almost no damage, 1/3rd of the time roughly cobalt mines will deal minimal damage, the other 1/3rd you can pop some raid cooldowns or healer personal cooldowns. Damage outgoing is higher than what it could be, but it's all fairly predictable and AoE healing anyway so shouldn't be much of an issue. Worth a shot imo. Don't bother dispelling the root obviously.

ok, so i've crafted a table to explain how the taunting should work, as this was the biggest hurdle to overcome tactics-wise that my guild faced, as everytime the wrong dog exploded, so did most of my raid. all the rest of the crap (chains, traps, puddles etc) can either be avoided or healed through.

on the left, is what should happen if they activate in the order of blue, green, purple. on the right is in order of blue, purple, green. once the order is chosen it will continue in that order for the entire fight. whichever activates first isn't much of an issue, but the taunting depends on which activates second.

bizzarely, the taunting actually works exactly like plaiting hair...

edit: also, dont forget the boss target frames on the right hand side of the screen display energy levels and generally make targetting easier.

Have all dps and healers stack behind the 2 bosses. This way u avoid getting damage from the chains and u dont need to break them.
If its easier, put a marker on someone in the dps-healer group so everybody knows who to follow.

This way u will get almost all the mines on your dps group. If the MT tank just carefully moves around u can avoid some mines. In cobalt petrification u can always send an unchained person out to get rid of some mines or just let it explode on the group and use some aoe healing to get eveybody up.

We also had no amethyst this week and just decided to let everyone but tanks stack on melee, completely ignoring jasper chains and just letting cobalt mines go off on everyone. 1/3rd of the time roughly jade shards will deal almost no damage, 1/3rd of the time roughly cobalt mines will deal minimal damage, the other 1/3rd you can pop some raid cooldowns or healer personal cooldowns. Damage outgoing is higher than what it could be, but it's all fairly predictable and AoE healing anyway so shouldn't be much of an issue. Worth a shot imo. Don't bother dispelling the root obviously.

I'm not sure about this. Are you telling that you guys just stack on melee and move all togheter whenever cobalt mine spwan or that you just stand there eating every mines?

Slowly Kite the bosses for mines along the hallways together, this will create alot more room to deal with mines. Aside from that have chains stick together, and heal through the 60k amethyst pools. This fight is not fun if your groups not packing a full heroic set of gear either, so make sure your raiders are at least in the 460 ilvl before bringing them in. How long are your fights lasting?

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

If i understood correctly there can be only 3 chains every time. So if we break ranged chains we get more chances linking melee and range.
Another thought i got, is for me to swich to blood in dps gear, so i dont get chained,

I'm really not sure where this "fact" has come from. There will be 4 sets of chains. Everyone except the tanks will be affected. If one pair only breaks chains, they will come back again.

Source: My log from last week, along with me looking at the raid frames this week. It really isn't limited to 3.

on the left, is what should happen if they activate in the order of blue, green, purple. on the right is in order of blue, purple, green. once the order is chosen it will continue in that order for the entire fight.

Really? Is that normal mode only? Because on heroic last night we had it just alternate between purple and red ~6 times. We only got cobalt once during the whole fight.

Have you rogue on mine removing duty. He should get the Elusiveness and the Burst of Speed talents, use feint before stepping on a mine to remove it, and then burst of speed out of the root. With feint and elusiveness he should take about 100k per mine, but still he should be careful to be near top health before detonating a mine. He should also use early CloS with Sprint/Burst to clear 2-3 mines who are close together and then again use clos on CD.

With the rogue, DK tank with AMS and the pallies with the bubble you can keep the mine numbers low which is the worst thing in this fight. Also first prio for everyone is to clear mines when you get cobalt petrification.

For chains, just stay close to each other and be vocal about the movement. If ranged/healers are chained together they should stay away from melee so they won't spawn mines there. Everyone should have a frame with the dogs energy so they will run back together when Jasper is about to explode.